A life in ... + Graham Sutherland | The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/culture/series/a-life-in+artanddesign/graham-sutherland
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John Richardson: a life in arthttps://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/john-richardson-life-in-art
'I was able to grow up and be what I wanted to be – a writer about art with a career at the centre of the art world'<p><sup>"</sup>How well do you know Kipling's poetry?" demands John Richardson, almost before the door to his Manhattan apartment has closed behind me. "I'm trying to remember the name of a poem … it's for something I'm writing." Richardson – the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/books/data/book/art/9781845951559/a-life-of-picasso-v" title="">first volume of whose Picasso biography</a> won him the Whitbread book of the year award in 1991 – is 88 years old and suffers from macular degeneration, severely hampering his ability to read. But he is still working furiously: writing, now with collaborators, volume four of the Picasso biography, and curating exhibitions. (His <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/jun/06/picasso-mediterranean-years-review" title=""><em>Picasso: the Mediterranean Years</em></a> at the Gagosian Gallery London in 2010 was regarded as a museum-quality exhibition – or indeed, as surpassing museum quality, arising as it did out of an intimate personal knowledge of the artist and his circle.) When I visit, he is drafting an essay on Lucian Freud, whom he had known since he was 18 years old and Freud was 20.</p><p>Richardson – who occasionally pauses at length to excavate a name from the deep layers of his memory, but who is otherwise sufficiently youthful to clamber out of a sash window to perch on his tiny terrace at the behest of the photographer – leads me through a startlingly impressive array of rooms, busily decorated with sculptures, deeply upholstered divans, elaborate lamps, antique tables and, above all, pictures. He gestures in the direction of an 18th-century portrait. "That's a Reynolds of Frederick, Prince of Wales. One of Queen Mary's ladies-in-waiting was always trying to get it out of me. They didn't have one at the palace." We whisk past Picassos and Freuds, and I spot what I imagine to be a reproduction of a Braque perched on a side table. It is only later, when I look at the inscription – "Pour Richardson, avec mes amitiés, G Braque" that I realise it's the real thing, a delicate piece in ink and cardboard collage of a bird flying to its nest.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/john-richardson-life-in-art">Continue reading...</a>Pablo PicassoArt and designCultureArt and designBiographyLucian FreudJean CocteauWH AudenFrancis BaconNancy MitfordGraham SutherlandFri, 23 Mar 2012 22:55:00 GMThttp://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/mar/23/john-richardson-life-in-artPhotograph: Tim Knox/GuardianThe art historian John Richardson. Photograph: Tim Knox for the GuardianPhotograph: Tim Knox/GuardianThe art historian John Richardson. Photograph: Tim Knox for the GuardianCharlotte Higgins2012-03-23T22:55:00Z